Both Captains and Warchiefs will taunt you, though the arrival of a War Chief will be accompanied by the orcish horde chanting their name. The sounds in the environment are effective, but it’s the audio used in association with the Captains and Warchiefs that build momentum best. The characterisation of Talion feels as though he comes from Gondor, with the same sombre tones of melancholy we heard from Sean Bean’s lips, and the Wraith (I’m still not telling you who in case the name DOES mean something to you) has the weighty voice we associate with twisted powers. The wraith that accompanies your character comes from The Silmarillion, though additional characters like Queen Marwen, Torvin and Ratbag do play notes that you may not recognise until after they’re undone. Where the game steps right in terms of the lore then is in the characters we may not know already. While that’s true, an exception is present in the case of dialogue, with many lines mirroring ones elsewhere in LOTR, which does take you out of the moment. True, it is set in Mordor and must intertwine with some key characters from the canon, but it does not do so for the sake of making references, or trying to invoke a wink of “Hey, remember this character?” Those present have proper justification for being there, as it’s conceivable they would be tied to Mordor during this period somewhere between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Shadow of Mordor does play notes from the series, drawing on characters from LOTR, but does so with restraint. War in the North pushes its original characters into the LOTR canon, but with actors taking on monumental roles that were beyond their ability, marring the delight one should feel sauntering around Rivendell. Memories of the former do not seem so offensive, though some of this is attributable to the use of footage, the actors from the films, or reasonable impersonators.
#LORD OF THE RINGS MIDDLE EARTH SHADOW OF MORDOR MOVIE#
It’s understandable for those based upon the films, but the overlap between movie and game was excessive in both LOTR: The Third Age and more recently with LOTR: War in the North. While one of the key draws for LOTR games is being able to explore the environments we’ve seen in films or read of in the books, the word judicious doesn’t come to mind when considering how references to the lore has been in previous games. It steadily improves as a game through play, strongly conveying the growth in power of the player’s character Talion through play as well as story, and in a most welcome change, it exercises moderation in how it touches upon the lore that surrounds Middle-earth. Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is probably the best LOTR-themed game in recent years, possibly since the tie-in game for Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
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